I’m surprised there was no thread for this already, especially since it’s one of the shows we’re doing predictions for. Anyone else watching this? I’m really enjoying the season so far. There have been some memorable partner routines and some really standout group numbers as well. I’m kind of missing solos this season, but I guess they’ll be back probably now that the partners are broken up and everyone’s dancing with an All Star. I’m also loving the little featurettes where the choreographers teach you a little dance move.

As far as competition, I don’t how any guy could get ahead of Ricky. He’s adorable, but can also be darker, and is good at everything.

I wonder why they cut directly from 14 to 10. Presumably, they couldn’t cut from 12 to 8 because they needed a “Top 10” for the tour (although I did notice the word “tour” was conspicuously absent from the episode – last year, not only did they make it clear that the top 10 were on tour, but Nigel made his “My connection with the show ends when the show ends, but I’ll ‘suggest’ to whoever’s running the tour that the two eliminated just before the top 10 be named as the ‘swings'” comment (meanwhile. “coincidentally,” the two tappers who were eliminated earlier in the to 20 were also added, presumably so they could have a tap number with the tapper in the top 10).

And is the show’s fan base so small now that everybody knows every past finalist just by first name without even having to be told which season they were on? (No wonder Nigel is worried that Fox might cancel it after this season…unless Nigel just used that as a ploy to get more people to watch.) Speaking of which, I seem to recall their being two Jasmines last season – yes, I know Cat was referring to Jasmine Haitch – er, uh, Jasmine H – but calling her just Jasmine made it sound like the other one is no longer important.

I don’t know why they went from 14 to 10 either. I guess their episode order got cut and they’re just trying to keep it to the right number of episodes without losinig too much of the audition process and competition. I was impressed that they had just a single episode to go from everyone who made it through the auditions to the Top 20, but I’m sure they would have preferred a little more time with that. I supposed doing the double, or quadruple, elimination at 14 gives them the most time to have seen the dancers’ work without compromising the format of breaking up partners and going to All Stars at Top 10.

I agree with you, too, about the way they just throw out the All Stars’ first names as if we’re to automatically know who they are. And it’s not like all of the All Stars were necessarily fan favorites or people who made it to the finale. Some of them are true All Stars while others just feel like alumni who were available. I’ve spent so much of this season trying to remember the last name of the other Jasmine from last season, probably because I keep seeing Jasmine Harper on those degree commercials, and remembering Cat hilariously calling her Jasmine Haitch all the time, and wondering who the other Jasmine was.

I couldn’t even guess what the chances are of the show being cancelled next season, but they seem to be streamlining in a lot of ways, like how the voting is now exclusively electronic. It surely must help they they are matching Dancing with the Stars in Emmy nominations with a smaller budget. Also, all of Fox’s reality talent shows seem to be failing. They dumped X Factor, and even if they opt to dump one of the others after the 2014-2015 season, I wouldn’t necessarily bet against SYTYCD in favor of American Idol, which has to cost so much more to produce and is hemmoraging viewers.

I don’t know why they went from 14 to 10 either. I guess their episode order got cut and they’re just trying to keep it to the right number of episodes without losinig too much of the audition process and competition.

I think I figured it out – not so much “the episode order got cut” as it is “Hell’s Kitchen has to start on September 10, so somebody decided SYTYCD would do better with a cut from 14 to 10 than it would with six in the finale.

Speaking of the finale…I haven’t been paying attention too closely this season; did they go back to “just one winner,” or have they said there will be one male winner and one female winner? I did hear that “the winner” gets a spot in the upcoming Broadway production of On the Town (and I can only imagine how some of the Broadway pavement pounders are going to treat “the outsider who can’t sing,” although of course Oklahoma! has a famous ballet scene usually done with non-singing dancers (although the 2000-ish revival had the actress who played Laurie also do the dance, which may be the reason she was the only non-American from the West End production to be allowed by Equity into the Broadway one, while Hugh Jackman (as Curly) was denied)), uh, where was I?Right, I remember now…”the winner” gets a spot in On the Town, which implies that there is only one winner.

So last night confirmed that there will be a tour with the top ten, which is great news.

It was funny how during last night’s show, Nigel was clearly throwing it out there that Ricky is the frontrunner, but he got what was clearly the least showy piece of choreography of the guys who are left. Maybe it doesn’t matter because he’s got such a huge fanbase, but I’m a little concerned that between the notion that he couldn’t possibly lose and a routine that felt like fluff compared to the other guys, he could do less well with votes than the other guys. Also, Rudy’s routine and judging were the funniest thing I’ve seen all summer.

I was surprised that they mentioned the Emmy nominations for the choreographers, but no mention for the costume designer whose Emmy win was already announced (Costume Design for Variety Programming is a juried award).

I was stunned that Tanisha and Rudy went home this week. They were my second and third favorite dancers. The voting audience is definitely appreciating Zach’s adaptability and growth, which is nice, but I thought Casey would be an easy out for the guys. Casey seems like a wonderful person, and he’s a good dancer, but it would be a shame if he made the finale over Ricky, Zach or even already-ousted Rudy. I don’t even know with these girls. I love Valerie, and to her credit, I had completely forgotten she was a tapper until her solo this week. But I don’t know that she seems any better than Jacque or Jessica. Tanisha was really the only one who stood out for me. The judges seem to be pushing Jessica a little for some reason, which is making me like her a little less. My favorite thing about Jacque was the little love story with Rudy, but now Rudy’s gone. She’s very good, but so are Valerie and Jessica. It feels very open in terms of who will come out on top, but also like it doesn’t matter because I don’t see any of the three of them winning.

At first, I was wondering why this week’s votes would be added to next week’s – then I realized that if they didn’t do it this way, then one of the two wouldn’t matter, since there are no eliminations next week.

I wonder why Napoleon & Tabitha didn’t choreograph a routine this week. Please, please, please, pleasepleaseplease, please, did I mention please, please tell me it’s not because somebody was afraid that their Emmy would be mentioned, making it rather obvious that Cat didn’t win one again. (Then again, they’re probably holding back on the Emmy talk until next week, to see if Nigel wins one for Reality-Competition Program…in which case, it would make Cat’s losing-er, “non-Emmy-receiving” streak that much more obvious.)

They mentioned Tabitha & Napoleon’s Emmy win. Nigel made a point of congratulating them when he was praising the choreography in the Wildebeast-choreographed Twitch/Valerie routine. I’ve never gotten the impression that Cat has hard feelings about not winning those Emmys or that others on the show have won where she hasn’t. It was a real triumph that she and the show were able to start breaking through with nominations.

This week’s show felt very high energy, and like they were really going for it in terms of dancers doing new things and not filling half the show with contemporary and jazz routines. Doriana Sanchez finally showed up after a pretty disco-less season (except for the Bollywood disco choreographed by Nikul). For me, Valerie absolutely murdered this week. She was stellar all the way through, and I thought Ricky was right up there as well. The results were just what I expected, and even though all of the dancers have been very good, I would rather have seen Tanisha in the finale instead of Jessica. Ah well.

I would guess that this week they reserved a lot of their more popular choreographers — Travis, NappyTabs, Sonya, Tyce — to have them prepare routines for next week’s performance finale.

I wasn’t paying too close attention – did Nigel announce that the show had been renewed? I seem to recall that he mentioned the Season 11 renewal in last year’s finale. Then again, Seasons 9 and 10 weren’t announced until October and just before Christmas, so it’s not much of a sign that the show is in trouble if he didn’t.

I wonder if Ricky will accept the part in On the Town – and if he does, when he would start; I don’t see the producers letting him out of the tour early for this.

Once the top 20 were chosen I felt that Ricky was the one to beat, but wow did they telegraph the outcome in that opening dance. Zach and Jessica were hardly in it; Ricky was the main focus with Valerie as the second focal point. I was also kind of bummed that none of Kathryn’s dances were chosen for replays. I know this season is not about the all-stars but she’s my favorite and had some good dances this year.